Manhattan Excavation

Sir Muirhead Bone, R.E. 1976-1953
Manhattan Excavation. 1923-28. Drypoint. Dodgson 390.xvii/xix. 12 3/8 x 10 1/4 (sheet 15 3/4 x 13 3/4). Edition of 40 in this state (total 151 impressions in 19 states). Begun from nature on June 4, 1923 and finished in 1928. A rich, beautifully inked impression printed on the full sheet with deckle edges. Signed and annotated "XVII" in pencil. This is the most dramatic of Bone's New York etchings. The subject is an immense excavation for the foundation of a new building on Madison Avenue. 

Muirhead Bone was born in Partick, a suburb of Glasgow in 1876. As a young man, he was apprenticed to a firm of architects and in the evenings attended classes at the Glasgow School of Art. Aware his vocation was art, and not architecture, he devoted his time almost exclusively to drawing. He continually sketched the streets, buildings and slums of Glasgow imbuing the urban decay with a dignity and sentiment he so admired in the work of the Dutch artists whose townscapes he had studied in the Glasgow Corporation Art Galleries. Bone moved to London in 1901, holding his first exhibition at the Carfax Gallery in 1902. His success both critically and financially was rapid. His status as an etcher in the early years of the last century placed him among the world's most celebrated artists. It is not an exaggeration to say that his international reputation among collectors and the curators of the 'Great Print Rooms' of Europe and America was without parallel. He was appointed the first Official War Artist in World War I and was the doyen of War Artists in the Second World War. He was instrumental in the foundation of The Imperial War Museum, and became a Trustee of The Tate and The National Gallery. He was knighted for his services to art in 1937.